The Curse of the 10,000-hour ‘Talent Syndrome’

Imagine if someone told you that you needed 10,000 hours to learn to drive a car.

No? What about 5000 hours then? Would that be suitable?
How about 3000 hours? Or 1000? Or 500? Ok, how about 60 hours?

A very average person with a reasonable fear of cars can learn to drive in about 60 hours.

Or can they? Because it depends on the car, doesn't it? Is it a small car? Is it a truck? Are you learning to drive with your husband/wife (not recommended) or are you learning to drive with a patient teacher? Are you learning to drive in Auckland, New Zealand or are you learning to drive in Mumbai, India?

The complexity of learning is so complex, that we'd rather not think about it. But the question isn't about learning. The question is: Does it really take us 10,000 hours to learn anything? No it doesn't. It takes us 10,000 hours to become a freakin' genius at something.

Most of us are reasonably competent at learning a software program in 30 hours.

Most of us can learn to play one song on a piano in 50 hours.
Most of us can learn how to write superb articles in about 120 hours.

But the 10,000-hour concept stops us in our tracks.

We are so obsessed with the factor of genius that we forget about competence.
Competence is easy. Competence is doable. Competence makes our lives richer and makes us more confident.

The stage of learning goes from infancy to competency…

From competency to fluency; from fluency to mastery. And you know what? Most of us are very competent at a lot of things we do every single day of our lives. And that's because we have to do it. We weren't born to type in forums, or to use iPhones, or to drive a car. But we do. We learn how to be competent in all of the above. Then we learn some more, and some more and then we become fluent. If we live long enough and we practice deliberately, we achieve mastery.

But the goal isn't mastery.

It's not even fluency.
It's just competency.

You don't need 10,000 hours. Or 5000 hours. Or even 1000 hours.

You need 60 hours.
Or 30 hours.
That's it.

You can go from a complete dolt to a competent, happy camper

All in 30 hours.
Try it. It works.

And it sure beats being a dolt who's waiting to free up 10,000 hours to be a genius!

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Comments

Thanks for this… it gives me hope……:)
As with the driving- I doubt that 10000h is enough for me to drive competent…….I guess some things take us loooong to even get competent. Most things we are just that and it is enough. and some things we really becomme a master-if we stick to it. It is good to know where we want to put all those hours in….
The worst we can do is to compare ourselfes with other people – as mostla we compare to the ones who learn faster than we and this eats a lot of energy which we could put into becomming a master….
Anyway thanks a lot….
I love to be on your blog.

If competence is the goal, I agree with you. But if mastery is the goal – mastery defined as being one of the best in the world – an NHL hockey player or a NASCAR race driver – 30 hours isn’t going to cut it. Even on the ordinary driver front, conventional wisdom is that it takes 10 years to become a good driver. And I doubt the graduated licensing system would have come into being if actuarial statistics didn’t show that new drivers have a lot more accidents than more experienced ones, or that insurance rates would decline based on years of experience.

But you’re right in one sense. If you’ve decided you want to eat to live rather than live to eat, you don’t have to aspire to the gourmet cookery level.

That goes without saying. Mastery is impossible in 30 hours. Even fluency is impossible.

Most of us just need to become competent in simple things. e.g. drawing, or writing, or all of these niggly little things that we could gain competence in, if only we didn’t believe so much in mastery. Or fluency for that matter.

So you think everyone can become competend in everything- using the right method? So how do I find the “right “method or how do my children find out to be able to be competent in all subjects? Or is competency a matter of how we look at it and how much we expect?

Technically speaking, yes—if we live for 70,000 years. 🙂 But jokes aside, you can indeed be competent at anything you choose to be.

You can have competency in all subjects if you have a overarching reward structure. My dad this for me when I was a child. There was the emotional reward and a very tiny monetary reward. To me, getting those rewards was critical to do well in all subjects.

Of course, this depends how young your kids are. If they’re around five or six, it’s easy to shape their thought process to “anything is possible”. Once they grow older and “viruses” seep into their system, they are far more resistant to change.

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